Gov. Shumlin is dreaming about folding every Vermonter into his single-payer health plan. That will include those of us on Medicare, TriCare and other types of individual and large employer policies. Why would he do this? Why take the risk of upsetting the apple cart?

It actually has to do with risk. According to the Vermont state website, there are now 608,827 people in the state. When you are talking about risk and insurance this is a relatively small pool. Why is this important? In a small pool there are fewer subscribers paying premiums. The premiums paid in cover the cost of paying for the health care provided to all the subscribers. When one member of the small group has a serious illness the expense will eventually increase the premiums for everyone. Conversely, when you are part of a large pool, there are obviously more people paying into the system so there is less risk to the individual subscribers.

So, is it any wonder that Gov. Shumlin is looking to add every Vermonter to his single-payer risk pool? Would it not make more sense to allow Vermonters to buy health insurance across state lines so they can be in larger risk pools? Then those of us on Medicare, TriCare, etc., will not need to be added to the small single-party, I mean, payer-risk pool.